jabhatta2 wrote:
Hi
AjiteshArun - I believe E is wrong beause of an incorrect comparison
But why cant the words be ellipsed ?
The exact words that are ellipsed are found earlier in the sentence (Red font)
E original: Demographers would have to know a great deal more than now about the social and economic determinants of fertility.
E will ellipsis :
Demographers would have to
know a great deal more than
(Demographers know) now about the social and economic determinants of fertility.
Hi
jabhatta2,
Ellipsis isn't just about whether words that we need in one part of the sentence
exist elsewhere in the sentence. Instead, it's more about whether omitted words can be
understood from the way the sentence is structured. This means that we may omit words that are there in the sentence or we may omit forms of those words (or even words that aren't there in the sentence). This can't be done randomly though, and whether a reader can understand what has been omitted plays a major role in deciding whether the omission is possible.
In this case:
1. The GMAT goes with the "They would have to know a great deal more than X" interpretation, where
X is
now. "They would have to know a great deal more than
now" isn't as clear as D, so this is a good reason to remove E.
2. If we go beyond (1), I'd be happy with ellipsis in a sentence like this:
(2a)
In 20 years, the Earth will be hotter than now.This is a shorter way of saying "In 20 years, the Earth will be hotter than (it is) now". I think that the sentence is clearer with
it is than without, but I'd try to look for other splits first.
Option E, however, is different. In (2a), "The Earth will be" and "it is" are very similar (
is is a form of
be). In option E, the verb in the first half is
would have to know, whereas what we want in the second half is just
know. This is why the
do in option D is important. This type of
do can help us shut other verb forms (like
would) out so that we can reach inside the infinitive and grab that
know.
That said, I can't say whether the GMAT would agree with this analysis, so it's probably better to stick with (1) as a reason to remove E.
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